Tip: Boost your activation rate by screen sharing with first-time users

Improving user experience is crucial for SaaS products, especially if you're experiencing a dropoff after signup. Get a clear understanding of what's happening for new users by screen sharing, and then iterating on what you saw.

After launching Syften, Michal Mazurek (@akfaew) realized that a significant portion of users didn't complete the basic setup. In response, he headed to a Facebook group and offered three free months to anyone who would share their screen with him as they opened the product for the first time. To his surprise, people were genuinely interested in helping. He watched them as they stumbled around, then made updates and did it again. By the end, he went through 15 iterations, all of which were pretty minor. And the results were impressive. The percentage of users who achieved a desired result after signing up went from 42% to 74%. He says the key was to let the users do the talking and to encourage them to answer their own questions.